Purdue University’s incoming class of 10,000 freshmen will be the first in the nation to have artificial intelligence graduation requirements when classes start next month — and Indiana’s largest public campus says it’s ready for them.
A Purdue bachelor’s degree will still require 120 credit hours. But future graduates of the school’s West Lafayette and Indianapolis campuses will now be required to take 1 to 3 of those hours in a course or courses that use Google AI software in a variety of structured projects and assignments.
“We have reworked every plan of study, which is just under 200, to ensure there is an AI competency opportunity in each one,” Haley Oliver-Jischke, Purdue’s senior vice provost for academic and student success, told The Washington Times in an interview. “It’s been an absolute, massive lift across many parts of the organization.”
She stressed that “AI is changing the future of work,” making it essential to “retool and change our degrees so students are still successful in the job marketplace.”
Faculty at the agricultural and engineering school spent the first half of this year updating coursework and creating new classes to craft the “AI@Purdue” requirements. They embedded more than 20 courses in the core curriculum to ensure graduates enter the workforce prepared to use artificial intelligence.
Examples include the College of Liberal Arts offering a new AI Literacy course in sociology this fall. The school expects the class to become a popular elective, and has prepared for a capacity of 2,500 students in multiple sections.
“There are a lot of writing assignments and research papers in that class,” said Ms. Oliver-Jischke. “A student could use AI to search for references and support arguments.”
Retooled courses include Botany 110: Introduction to Plant Science, an entry-level biology course that professors have reenvisioned to include AI learning requirements. Students may take it as an elective or core requirement, depending on their major.
The school’s faculty envisions AI helping students create and assess the quality of science projects, critique each other’s work, cross-check references, craft research proposals and devise questions for Socratic dialogues.
Ms. Oliver-Jischke, a food science professor, said students will work with their academic advisors to ensure they question and cross-check AI-generated data.
“We need to be specific and communicate the rules of engagement to a student clearly,” she said. “If something isn’t stated, what assumptions do students make about what’s acceptable?”
Most higher-education insiders have praised Purdue’s leadership. They predict that dozens of other elite colleges will create similar requirements over the next two years.
“Purdue’s AI requirement reflects where the future is heading,” Emily Niedermaier of Appily Marketing, a college planning and student recruitment company, said in an email. “AI is quickly becoming something every student needs to understand.”
Others have questioned whether Purdue’s requirements will convey real job skills or become another box to check off for graduation. They warn that the requirements could prompt other schools to add to a growing amount of ‘AI slop’ and unethical uses emerging nationwide.
“The risk isn’t that under-resourced schools won’t try to follow Purdue’s lead,” said Zach Kinzler of BoodleBox, a collaborative AI platform. “It’s that they’ll adopt the language of an AI requirement without the infrastructure behind it — and end up widening the exact gap they’re trying to close.”
Other schools, including Wake Forest University, have signaled their intention to mimic Purdue’s requirements as soon as possible.
“My best guess is that we are about one year away from implementing them,” said Jed Macosko, a professor who teaches AI in physics and finance courses at the private North Carolina campus.
AI boom
Dozens of universities have launched AI courses and degrees in recent years. Meanwhile, student use of the technology has become widespread for studying and test preparation.
The Trump administration and lawmakers in California, home to the nation’s most lucrative tech companies, have endorsed embedding AI literacy requirements at every level of education.
Dozens of other states have taken early steps in the same direction, responding to investments in the technology sector and to automation eliminating many white-collar jobs once filled by college graduates.
University of Wyoming economist Scott Beaulier said faculty at his public flagship campus have embedded AI lessons into “every single course” in its MBA program.
“Employers increasingly expect graduates to understand these tools,” Mr. Beaulier said. “The question is no longer whether universities should address AI, but how they should do so responsibly.”
Skeptics of Purdue’s approach say they are waiting to see how it addresses emerging plagiarism, data security and intellectual property concerns over AI rearranging material from countless sources within minutes.
Edward Tian, CEO of GPTZero, an AI writing detection platform, said the goal of ethical AI courses should not be “how to write better prompts.”
“What matters most is being able to figure out when AI is not performing properly or needs to be questioned,” Mr. Tian said.
Nir Kshetri, a business management professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, noted that the unemployment rate among college graduates aged 23 to 27 jumped from 3.25% in 2019 to 4.59% last year.
He chalked that up to AI rapidly consolidating and changing expectations for entry-level sales, marketing, finance and customer support jobs – a trend he said requires college graduates to acquire more than basic knowledge of the technology.
“As firms integrate AI into operational and coordination processes, they are reducing demand for routine execution tasks while increasing demand for workers who can develop, integrate, oversee, and govern AI-enabled systems,’ said Mr. Kshetri, who researches AI.
Purdue’s plan
Purdue issued its first AI guidance in 2023 as usage of ChatGPT, a next-generation chatbot, expanded across college campuses. It has since offered an ever-expanding menu of AI courses and degrees.
The school’s Board of Trustees approved a plan in December that includes five requirements: Learning with AI, Learning about AI, Researching AI, Using AI, and Partnering in AI.
A five-year agreement has created a “Google AI Hub space” at the school. It grants Purdue faculty, students, and researchers full access to Google Cloud’s AI tools and software to help generate hypotheses and research proposals.
Faculty leaders and curricular committees worked with professors one-on-one throughout January and February to embed the requirements in their syllabi. They’ve been finalizing the materials since then.
According to Purdue, several domestic and international schools have reached out to ask about the university’s new requirements. Some have questioned how the school will teach the ethical and productive use of AI to enhance rather than replace students’ critical thinking.
Scholars at Rollins College, a private Florida liberal arts school that created an AI certificate, have struggled to reach consensus on such issues in campus-wide discussions about adding an AI competency to the general education program.
“Campuses that are trying to come to a broad, general agreement about AI competency are going to find it to be challenging, because there are so many different perspectives on the best way to use AI and when to introduce students to different AI skills,” said Daniel Myers, a Rollins College computer science professor.
Ms. Oliver-Jischke, the Purdue administrator, acknowledged these concerns. She said her university still needs to update its AI guidance and standardize AI use statements in course descriptions.
At the same time, she emphasized that 75% of Purdue students major in STEM disciplines, making the school ideal to reach these goals through trial and error.
“It’s not an approach that’s for every institution, and not everyone agrees with it,” Ms. Oliver-Jischke said. “But it doesn’t mean you don’t need to have AI in the core curriculum and evaluate it to bolster critical thinking.”
